Contract Bonus Clauses Pay Off Big For Philly Slugger Bryce Harper

Bryce Harper has extra incentive to win the World Series: his contract contains a clause that guarantees a $100,000 bonus if he’s named Most Valuable Player in the Fall Classic.

One of several performance clauses contained in the 13-year, $330 million deal Harper signed with the Philadelphia Phillies on the eve of the 2019 season, it seemed odd at the time for several reasons.

For one thing, in his first seven seasons, Harper had never played for a pennant-winning team. But a bigger reason was the track record of his new team, which had not even advanced to postseason play since 2011.

All of a sudden, agent Scott Boras looked like a genius.

Instead of marrying him to San Francisco or Los Angeles, contending clubs closer to his client’s Las Vegas home, Boras bamboozled the baseball world by bringing his prize performer to the Phillies, desperate for a superstar after six straight losing seasons.

The deal delivered Harper a $20 million signing bonus plus a $10 million salary in its first year, then $26 million per year from 2020-28 and $22 million per annum from 2029-31. He can’t be traded or opt out early and none of the money is deferred.

But the half-dozen bonus clauses have already started to pay off.

According to the contract, Harper gets $50,000 for making the All-Star team, winning a Gold Glove or Silver Slugger, or earning Championship Series MVP honors, as he did Sunday.

Thanks to his visionary agent, Harper has already earned $500,000 for winning the National League MVP trophy – his second – last year. He could still add a $100,000 check to his post-season winnings this year if he becomes the World Series MVP.

Nobody expected the Phils to fly this high.

The team had a roller-coaster ride, finishing third in the NL East, 14 games out of first place, and winding up with 87 wins. But they jelled just in time to flatten the Cardinals, Braves, and Padres in postseason play. Philadelphia’s combined record against those three powerhouses in the playoffs was a resounding 8-2.

Harper made history with 10 extra-base hits in as many playoff games, joining Carlos Beltran, Willie Stargell, Enrique Hernandez, Hideki Matsui, and Fred McGriff as the only players to enjoy such powerful postseasons (Beltran and Stargell had 11 each).

Against the potent Padres pitching staff in the NLCS, Harper had the game-winning RBI in three of his team’s four wins – including the two-run, eighth-inning, opposite-field homer that turned a 3-2 deficit into a 4-3 win in the finale at Citizens Bank Park.

“I don’t think anybody was surprised,” said teammate Rhys Hoskins, who put on a power show of his own. “This guy has a knack for coming up big in the biggest moments.”

Harper already has a club-record 18 hits in this post-season, which has at least four games to go. The Phils will be seeking their third world championship when the 2022 World Series starts at Minute Maid Park Friday night.

“We’re ready to go,” Harper said in the jubilant locker room after Game 4 ended. “We’ve got four more.”

He’s only 30 but it seems the 6’3″ left-handed slugger has been manhandling major-league pitching for years. He was 19 when he broke in with the 2012 Washington Nationals and won Rookie of the Year honors. Three years later, he was National League MVP after a career-best 42 homers.

But he left the Nationals in the spring of 2019, just months before the Nats parlayed a wild-card finish into a world championship. The Phillies are trying to do the same thing.

It might not have happened without the adoption of the designated hitter by the National League this year. A Blake Snell fastball broke Harper’s left thumb, sending him to the sidelines for 52 games and hampering his ability to throw from his normal right field position. But the DH spot was the right place at the right time – even though Harper needed weeks to recapture his power stroke.

He still reached his 30th birthday Oct. 16 as one of three players with 250 home runs, 100 stolen bases, and 800 walks at that age.

Playing half the schedule in the bandbox known as Citizens Bank Park helps Harper. The distance from home plate to the foul poles is 329 feet – perfect for a slugger who uses all fields – and it’s 401 feet to center. The ball also travels well in the South Philadelphia ballpark.

For Harper, who had been on an MVP trajectory this year before breaking his thumb, the free-agent signings of outfielders Kyle Schwarber and Nick Castellanos before this season and durable catcher J.T. Realmuto in 2019 provided plenty of lineup protection.

Realmuto was on base with a leadoff single ahead of Harper’s two-run homer that led to victory in NLCS Game 4.

“The only thing that mattered [for me] was winning for the name on the front [of my jersey],” Harper told Tom Verducci of Sports Illustrated after the Phils clinched the pennant.

“It wasn’t about me. It was about the team coming together with the same purpose: to win.”

The Phils have been out of the playoffs since 2011 and without a world title since 2008. They failed to defend their crown in 2009 and had not reached the World Series since. Until now.